For many years, the belt industry employed a belt hanger of the type employing a flat body of cardboard, and later of plastic, defining an upper hook portion for applying the hanger to a display rod, a central or body portion depending from the hook portion, and a lower or tail portion suspended from the body portion and defining an inverted T-shaped opening. In use of such hangers, the tail portion was inserted into the frame of a belt buckle and the prong of the buckle was nested in the T-shaped opening, the belt thereby being hung from the display rod, however at an angle to the vertical.
Disadvantage attended such off-vertical belt hanging to the extent that fewer belts could be displayed per lineal dimension of the display rod than would apply were the belt to be hung in truly vertical manner. A further disadvantage of such known hangers, later to be referred to as so-called "short tail" or "unfolded tail" hangers, was that the buckle could be readily separated from the hanger. Such separation occurred innocently in the course of a customer applying the belt across his or her waist, but sometimes was fraudulent in instances wherein the hanger included pricing data and the customer desired to shift a hanger for a less expensive belt to a hanger for a more expensive belt.
Solutions to the foregoing problems were presented in the invention disclosed in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 3,710,996. Therein, a belt hanger structure was disclosed of so-called "folded tail" type, wherein the hook portion continued to suspend therefrom the body portion, but wherein the body portion suspended therefrom a tail portion in the form of a strap defining the inverted T-shaped opening medially thereof, the strap being adapted to be folded about the bottom of the T-shaped opening. The terminal folded part of the tail portion carried a projection and the starting portion of the tail or body portion defined an opening adapted for interference-fit receipt of the projection.
Such projection-receiving opening was fully within the hanger in its planar, unfolded state and, with close dimensioning of the opening, the projection, once inserted, could not be released from retention therein by hand. Accordingly, release of the hanger from the belt, innocently or with fraudulent intent, could not be readily realized. Further, since the hanger defined the fold line of the folded tail coincidently with the median thereof, true vertical hanging of hangers and belts secured therein was to be attained, increasing the density of belts which could be hung per unit lineal dimension of the display rod.
In the course of usage of the belt hangers of the '996 patent, belt manufacturers came to look to the latter advantage more than to the former advantage, since the former advantage was fully realized only upon essentially equal insertion and withdrawal forces being involved in use thereof. Thus, belt manufacturers came to witness an assembly labor problem wherein the person applying the hanger to the belt could not readily accomplish the assembly without resort to accessory tooling providing a mechanical advantage. Accordingly, manufacturing comprise was struck as between the insertion and retention forces, giving rise to the continued possiblity of fraudulent removal of the hangers from the belts.
By way of further background to the present invention, the belt industry came subsequently to look to the hanging of belts having so-called "stud belt buckles" and a recognition of the problem inherent therein when the short tail hanger was used to hang the same. Here, it was found that the stud, which projected outwardly of the buckle on its underside and was inserted into the T-shaped opening of the short tail hanger, was exposed such that it could mar adjacently hung stud buckles of belts.
In commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,669, a solution was found for this problem, namely, by disposing the stud of a buckle of a belt to be hung interiorly aside a course of the folded tail of the '996 patent structure.
While the structure of the '669 patent provided for retention of the stud in the keyhole opening provided therein, the insertion force involved in retention of the folded tail in locked, folded condition, again as in the case above discussed of the '996 patent, was essentially equal to the insertion force, continuing the comprise as between practical insertion force and practical retention force.
The '996 and '669 patents have been held to be valid in litigation on infringement thereof, as is reported in 691 F. Supp. 741 (SDNY 1988), the Court noting the foregoing advantages in its decision.
The belt hanging industry has come recently to look to an enhanced retention of folded tail hangers with belts hung thereby. Particularly, the extant compromise as between insertion force and retention force has become an unacceptable compromise.